Can the Philippines Bring Mindanao Under Control by 2022?

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte does not always make good on his campaign promises, but his commitment to the peace process in Mindanao has largely been a welcome exception.

Duterte, a Mindanao native, inherited a historic peace agreement signed in 2014 between the previous administration and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a rebel group that had fought the Philippine military for decades. In the agreement, the MILF agreed to drop its arms in return for the establishment of an autonomous region.

Implementing that agreement was never going to be easy, but the normalization process has been mostly a success story. The Bangasmoro Autonomous Region of Muslim MIndanao (BARMM) was established in 2019, and its young government has made considerable headway in smoothing tensions between rival Moro groups and convincing remaining Moro rebels to commit to the peace process.

Its progress, however, has been shaken recently by an escalation in violent incidents involving the Bangasmoro International Freedom Fighters (BIFF), an Islamic State (IS)-inspired Moro rebel group that used to be allied with the MILF but split after the 2014 peace agreement.

The recent clashes between the BIFF and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people and have jeopardized the BARMM government’s goals of establishing new institutions and legislation in time to hold its first elections in 2022. This goal has also been delayed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and cases are rising once again in the BARMM more than one year after Mindanao announced its first COVID-19 lockdowns.

But the presence of the BIFF is just one of many lingering security concerns in Mindanao, which recently passed the four-year anniversary of the start of the 2017 siege of Marawi by IS-inspired Maute militants. That siege led to a five-month battle between the Maute group and the AFP in which nearly 1.1 million civilians were displaced. The Philippine government at the time instituted martial law across the entirety of Mindanao, which remained in effect until January 2020.

The period of martial law was unable to cleanse the island of IS-inspired radicalism. Some former Maute leaders remain active in Mindanao, and tens of thousands of Marawi residents remained displaced as of January 2021, creating frustration that has been exploited by extremists.

The Abu Sayyaf terror group, another IS-inspired rebel outfit located mostly on the islands off Mindanao’s southwestern coast, also remains active and has recently attempted to plan ransom kidnappings in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

As Duterte reaches the end of his single six-year term in 2022, he is on track to leave a situation for his successor that might contain reason for optimism – but could also be highly combustible.

Much of this depends on the Bangasmoro normalization process, which must be prioritized by both the Duterte administration and the BARMM government. In a recent visit to the BARMM, Duterte expressed his support for the peace process but threatened an “all-out offensive” by the AFP should BIFF rebels continue attacking civilians and security forces. Further escalations in conflict run the risk of factionalizing Moro groups, along with the young BARMM government itself.

The government has, in some cases, been slow to deliver promised aid to former MILF rebels. It has also been accused of dragging its feet in the process to rehabilitate Marawi, and many residents of the city have come to believe that Duterte is not prioritizing their needs. According to data released in May by the peacebuilding organization International Alert, Marawi saw an increase in 2019 in common crimes, black market economies, and conflict such as clan feuds, despite an overall decrease in conflict in the BARMM. This was likely caused by a rise in unemployment and poverty in the wake of the siege – issues which have only worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the group Duterte has shown the most interest in fighting is one that has not yet been mentioned: the communist New People’s Army (NPA), a rebel guerilla group which maintains a presence in rural areas of the Philippines, including Mindanao. The NPA has been engaged in violent conflict with the AFP for decades, but it came close to negotiating a peace agreement with the Duterte administration before the president unilaterally ended talks in 2017.

Duterte’s government has since used the NPA as a political boogeyman, frequently accusing political opponents, activists, journalists, and other government critics of being secret communist sympathizers – a practice known as “red-tagging” that can be deadly.

Experts have argued that the Philippine military would be better served focusing on IS-inspired extremists rather than the NPA, which has continued to express interest in negotiating peace. But Duterte, a former student of exiled NPA founder Jose Maria Sison, shows little interest in doing this. Perhaps his successor will take a different approach.